


The Working Hard Game

by Wordplaysam



Category: The Hating Game - Sally Thorne
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 09:53:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12981537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wordplaysam/pseuds/Wordplaysam
Summary: Though Josh and Lucy don't work together anymore, there are still games to be played.An FTH Christmas gift.





	The Working Hard Game

The Working Hard Game is played like this:

Twin alarms go off, rousing us from our tangle of bed and sheets. In the early days of our relationship, we pushed ourselves, me setting my alarm five minutes before his, then his three minutes before mine, stretching and tugging at the absolute limit of sleep we could get until we were both bleary-eyed and haggard. Now they are calibrated to the second, neither of us wanting to give the appearance that our jobs are so restful as to allow us a moment less sleep than the other.

“Big meeting today,” I say as I elbow into the bathroom. “Can’t be late. You don’t mind if I get the shower first, do you?”

“No problem, Shortcake,” he replies. “I’ve got an important conference call at Sanderson this morning so I’m going to need all the coffee I can get.”

By the time I vacate the bathroom, the kitchen smells like fresh-roasted coffee beans, the aroma pulling me from the swirling steam I’ve created and to the couch, where he sets a full mug in front of me, his own already half-drained. The bed is already made, not a crease to be seen, all signs of our exhaustive love-making the night before pulled taut, erased. His clothes already laid out on it, freshly pressed. Bedroom blue or pale green or saucer-of-cat’s-cream. He’s abandoned the order, since we got together, since he started at Sanderson. The rotation used to annoy me, but now I find myself set adrift by the lack of structure. I can never predict what will come next: once he even wore the dove-gray twice in a row. I’ve lost so many constants since his brother’s wedding, gone through so much change. But of course, I’ve gained one big constant: Joshua himself.

After he’s showered, after I’ve dried my hair, after he’s pulled on his clothes and I’ve applied my Flamethrower lipstick, not once but twice, we begin our shuffle out the door.

A kiss, first. An innocent peck. “I’ll see you tonight,” he says.

“I might have to work late,” I reply. “If the meeting goes well, I’ll need to put together a proposal package for Helene and Richard.”

“That’s fine,” he says, putting his hand under my chin and tilting my face up to meet his. “I might need to stay late to run some projections, anyway.”

He kisses me again, and this time it’s deeper, anything but innocent. I always feel like I’m being devoured by Josh, like he’s the predator and I’m the prey. My heart pounds in my throat as my hands reach up, my fingers curling in his hair. 

“I really have to go,” I say.

“Me, too,” he growls as his lips leave my mouth to kiss along my neck.

“Big meeting.”

“Important conference call.”

“They’re really useless without me.”

“I keep the whole publishing house afloat.”

He pulls me into the soft embrace of his—our—couch. My skirt rides up as I unbutton his pants. His breath is hot in my ear as both of feel like there isn’t enough oxygen in the room. I side my hand into his jeans but keep it on the outside of his underwear, touching gently though the cloth. He moans, and that is how I know I have him.

I reach over and grab my coffee, disengage from him, stand up. “Gotta run,” I say. “Don’t work too hard.” His face is red but he’s still glowing, as always. I’m not sure which one of us is tortured more by my leaving, me or him. 

I drive to work in my car—new, now that I have the COO title and the salary to match it. Helene called my old car obscene. I reapply the Flamethrower and adjust my hair in the car—if Helene were to see me after I pulled myself away from Josh, obscene would be too soft a word.

At work, I do, in fact, work hard, though that is secondary to the true point of the Working Hard Game. Figures, and numbers, reports from our readers on books sent in on spec ranging from “hilariously bad” to “boringly bad,” with the occasional, seldom-seen, highly-prized “good.” It is difficult and takes all of my attention and energy, but the truth is, I love it. It is all of the fulfilling parts of my old assistant job, minus the demeaning parts, plus the deep, soul-warming knowledge that I have reached the pinnacle of a dream that I have held since I was a child. 

Honestly, I go whole stretches of my day without thinking of Joshua Templeton and the bed we share. 

But then five o’clock nears, and he creeps back into my thoughts.

The morning version of the Working Hard Game is just a prelude to the main event. The trick is this: how to make sure I spend the maximum amount of time with Josh as possible, without him thinking my job is softer and less demanding than his. If we both went home at five, then we could have nearly endless hours together: sex before dinner, maybe. Cooking together, his hand guiding mine as I stir a pot of noodles glossy with olive oil. An hour of E.R., my head resting on his chest, and then another round of sex, wearing us out before we fall asleep, ready for a new day.

But to be the one home at five while the other doesn’t get home until six, seven, eight, nine…that would be the ultimate humiliation. The ultimate loss of the Working Hard Game.

As Helene leaves for the day, she passes by my desk. “You’re really exceeding even my wildest expectations,” she says, the faint sent of rosewater, probably bought at some high-end Parisian boutique, wafting around her. “But you should go home! See that handsome young man of yours.”

In truth, I give myself all the work I can manage. Since I became COO, since I moved in with Josh, productivity at B & G has skyrocketed. I’m so far ahead on all of my work that I would probably hibernate for the winter. 

I do math problems in my head. He said he’d be working late to run projections. That sounds like an eight o’clock leave time for him. His commute is forty-two minutes, sixteen longer than mine, so I should keep working until eight-sixteen, and thirty seconds. The ultimate win of the Working Hard Game would be to walk up to the apartment just as the other is sliding their key in the lock: maximum amount of time spent together, but working just a fraction harder.

When the time is right, I shut off my computer and head down to my car. The entire way home, my mind is full of dirty thoughts of what I’d like him to do to me, and me to him. Our bodies, slick with sweat and lust. Each ride home is just as exquisite and excruciating as the night I drove to his place after work, each stoplight feeling like a personal attack.

I park in my spot, and notice to my disgust that he isn’t home yet. I consider circling the block, but that feels like cheating, and if he were to catch me then I’d lose even more face. So I admit defeat and park. I’m just settling in on the couch when Josh arrives. 

We compare our days, the conversation made someone complicated due to our NDAs. We’re each careful not to overshare. I don’t know about him, but I dream of us opening up our own publishing house one day. Sky Diamond, I call it in the half-written business proposal I keep locked in my desk. Where we’ll be free to talk about work all day long, and use the Working Hard Game to propel us to the top of our field.

We make dinner, but it’s a rushed affair, not a luxurious one. We sit down with our plates on the couch, our nightly ritual of E.R. This time is sacred to us, a ceasefire. E.R. ran for a long time, and we have many episodes to go, but still I fret about what will happen when we reach the end. Will we find another show, or will the spell be broken? Josh watches for the medical mistakes, as always, pointing out a misidentified hematoma, or an egregious breech of hospital policy that goes part unmentioned. Meanwhile, I have found myself swept up in the drama of the characters.

When the episode has finished, bed beckons. We make short work of the careful bed-making Josh had completed all those hours ago. The sex is not only good as I had imagined on the way home, it’s better, which I know will fill future rides home with even more beautiful anticipation. Even though I see it every night, I still marvel over the lines of his body, his perfect skin, the sometimes gentle and sometimes iron-tight feel of his hands on my skin. It’s my turn to devour him, and by the time we are finished he looks dazed, like a cartoon animal with stars around his head.

I nestle myself into the space under his arm, curling against his chest, and we lie like that for what feels like hours, basking in the comfort that accompanies being with the person you trust and respect most in the world. It is my favorite time of day. His long fingers stroke my hair near my temple until we are both drowsy. I yawn.

“Gotta go to bed,” I say. “Big day tomorrow.”

“Not as big as mine,” he replies. “I’ve got a meeting with the board.”

I lean over and give him a kiss on his nose, a gentle brushing of lips imbued with just as much passionate feeling as any sex. He smiles, his face practically lighting up our dim bedroom.

“I love you, Lucy,” he says.

“I love you too, Josh.”

I roll over and close my eyes, and prepare for another round of the Working Hard Game.


End file.
